Le 5/15/08 12:11 PM, Daniel Kinzler a écrit :
And they should all be deleted, IMHO.
Amen.
We have done this before several times for the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Pyramid and the Atomium.
We still have pictures of the Louvre Pyramid and other buildings such as the Grande Bibliothèque under the so-called "Terreaux jurisprudence" (see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:FOP#France). Roughly, the courts traditionally admit an exception to copyright if the protected artwork is accessory compared to the main represented subject. I feel the extent of this exception is sometimes stretched a bit too thin ("the main subject is to show the neighbourhood; see, there are three cars parked near that big copyrighted building").
The case of the Eiffel Tower is slightly different: the company providing the lighting claims copyright over the lighting design, which is a bit bold IMO. I don't know whether the claim has been tested in court.
I don't know how french law deals with "ordinary" buildings though.
Buildings are protected by intellectual property law as long as they're "works of the spirit" ("oeuvres de l'esprit"). Jurisprudence is rather restrictive: buildings seem to be protected only if they have a definite artistic character ("caractère artistique certain") and provided they don't belong to a series. This is a bit peculiar as the threshold of originality has proved to be disturbingly low for other creations: protection has been granted to a salad-shaker and a bottle-opener.
Marie-Lan